It's not like that at all. The fact that I'm keeping my eyes open and looking all around at all traffic means that I'm paying MORE attention to what's going on around me.

Somebody back me up on this one.

I'll back you up.

You're right, though I'd argue that you probably spend more time watching your mirrors than would be ideal for safety.

Some interesting statistics here:

Our favorite radar-buying insurance company commisioned a study to prove that radar detectors are evil. They compared the collision rates of drivers who had purchased radar detectors with the general population, obviously hoping to show that anyone who owned a radar detector was a menace to society.

Result? Detector owners had 30-40% lower collision rates than the general population.

Another study looked at relative speeds and discovered that collision rates were lowest for cars that were travelling 2-3mph faster than the average for a given road. I think the conclusion here is driving your mirrors is a bad thing. (It only gets me in trouble at the track, that's for sure. )

Continuing the counterintuitive trend, a friend of mine is tracking the DMV records of students that attend high-performance driving schools (schools at tracks). He's seeing a ~90% reduction in collisions compared to the general population. Maybe we should stop giving out drivers licenses in crackerjack boxes?

Rather than replying again and again to this thread, I think it's just time to plug the National Motorists Association, which I think of as the driver's equivalent of the EFF. (And what AAA used to be, before they sold out and became an insurance company.)

-Zandr
Mk.I #0150 10GB
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